Friends in chess

Worm's Eye View

Quite coincidentally, I developed an acquaintance with a Danish police commissioner in late August 2001. It was at exactly the same time I got to know a Brazilian, who works on aircraft design for Boeing in Seattle and a London-based architect called Kevin, whose firm had done a World Trade Centre (WTC) contract.

All three could speak with authority on different aspects of 9/11 and its aftermath. In Soren's case, we learnt more from correlating the silences and absences over the next two years than from actual statements. He just got busier and busier.

Rubens, conversely, was bitterly eloquent about anti-hijacking design measures such as combination-lock cockpit doors that had been suggested but not incorporated because they would add another $ 300 to the cost of a $ 50 million aircraft.

Kev was simply amazed that the WTC had stood up for a vital 45 minutes after sustaining an impact that it wasn't designed for "" he called it "a triumph of overengineering".

Nick works for an energy exploration group operating out of Australia "" his take was that this would be gravy-time for the hard-hats in his profession.

Natalya teaches at Kazakhstan University: she had interesting things to say about burgeoning Islamic radicalism in an ex-Soviet republic with a brutally secular government and an population that is 40 per cent ethnic Russian.

Jose runs a cafe in Tenerife, Canarias and his income depends directly on tourist traffic. He has been struggling to stay in business for the past two years.

All those conversations about 9/11 and its effect on our scattered lives took place over 2002 and 2003. In September 2001, we simply didn't know each other well enough to discuss an event as polar as this. Or other, more personal, stuff. That acquaintance developed over time.

In 2002, we commiserated with Wojchiech over his divorce and with Torsten when his house was flooded out in southern Germany. Franz's early 2003 breakthrough on his thesis about distributed computing, which assured him tenure at Stanford, was greeted with joy. And people said many wise things to Josef, which may have helped him to reconcile his Jewish heritage with his Buddhist beliefs.

Oddly enough, we were all trying to virtually beat up on each other even as we developed this network of intimate relationships. We were part of the same league in an email chess tournament. These leagues enforce the association of individuals who far outstrip the pipe-smoking nuns of urban legend in terms of exoticism.

Apart from a love of chess, we have little in common. I have played with an 11-year old Jehovah's Witness and a 60-year old Russian who ran a "mature escort service in Sankt Petersburg" as well as with dozens of computer scientists, assorted academics and architects, the foreman of a Skoda factory, a Hungarian scrabble champion and several financial traders.

Unlike other email groups, chess leagues never break up in tears and virtual abuse. A member cannot go into hibernation. Until the tournament is done "" an average of 21 months for most events "" every member of the league will correspond ritually with every other member. You will send your move, that person will reply, you will move again.

It's natural that you will exchange news, views and snippets of personal information alongside. The conventions of polite behaviour are always heroically maintained "" the International Correspondence Chess Federation motto is loosely translated as "We are friends in chess".

Even in the middle of arcane disputes relating to time-zones and garbled move-receptions, I have never seen anybody get abusive.

Everybody addresses each other as "friend" or "chessfriend", until they have been playing long enough to get on first-name terms. Resignations are always accompanied by congratulations "" unlike normal play where the loser snarls as he heads for the exit!

That tournament ended recently though every one of those blokes will remain on my long-range radar. I've just started another set of 22 games with 22 utterly unknown individuals. I wonder what this lot does.